MLB 2023

[The Buscher]

One of my favorite fan reactions is when a fanbase rampantly denies something only to finally admit it when they’re down

For the Dodgers fans, it’s getting offended anyone who says that their COVID year title was fraudulent.  Now they’re all like “all this winning over the last decade and all we have to show for it is a 60-game season title, I hate this team”

The football version of this is Pats fans openly admitting they liked Belichick better when he cheated.

[The Buscher]

In my ongoing OOTP game, when I expanded the league to 32 teams I actually increased the length of the regular season, but also pared down the playoffs considerably.

32 teams, each league has 2 divisions of 8 teams (East and West)

180 games - 84 in-division, 48 out-of-division, 48 interleague.  Balanced schedule every year with the only fluctuation being the home/away teams in the interleague every other year.

The 4 division winners make the playoffs, launching right into the NLCS and ALCS, then the World Series.

Add it all up and the season from Opening Day to a possible World Series Game 7 is basically identical to real life, you've just replaced the first two weeks of the playoffs with more regular season baseball where everybody plays.  Of course, while I imagine this would be a "trade-off" for cutting the playoffs, you know the cheap owners would moan that more regular season games simply costs them money.

In the decade or so I've run under this format I've never seen a fluke division winner, in an 8-team division you're bound to get at least one powerhouse.  I've definitely seen it work out where the runner-up in one division is a better team than the other division winner, but that's the breaks.  You had 180 games to have a better record than your division mates and you failed.

[Krabby]

11 minutes ago, Busch Wyatt said:

In my ongoing OOTP game, when I expanded the league to 32 teams I actually increased the length of the regular season, but also pared down the playoffs considerably.

32 teams, each league has 2 divisions of 8 teams (East and West)

180 games - 84 in-division, 48 out-of-division, 48 interleague.  Balanced schedule every year with the only fluctuation being the home/away teams in the interleague every other year.

The 4 division winners make the playoffs, launching right into the NLCS and ALCS, then the World Series.

Add it all up and the season from Opening Day to a possible World Series Game 7 is basically identical to real life, you've just replaced the first two weeks of the playoffs with more regular season baseball where everybody plays.  Of course, while I imagine this would be a "trade-off" for cutting the playoffs, you know the cheap owners would moan that more regular season games simply costs them money.

In the decade or so I've run under this format I've never seen a fluke division winner, in an 8-team division you're bound to get at least one powerhouse.  I've definitely seen it work out where the runner-up in one division is a better team than the other division winner, but that's the breaks.  You had 180 games to have a better record than your division mates and you failed.

That's interesting - seems like a pretty old-school style of format busch, which is cool! What were the teams that you added?

[The Buscher]

2 hours ago, Krabby said:

That's interesting - seems like a pretty old-school style of format busch, which is cool! What were the teams that you added?

I added Vegas as a standalone team, keeping the A's in Oakland where they belong.  The second team was put in Vancouver, not really an expansion candidate in real life but I felt the west getting both teams made geographic sense with where I was placing them, and it also meant Seattle wasn't completely isolated.

[Krabby]

2 hours ago, Busch Wyatt said:

I added Vegas as a standalone team, keeping the A's in Oakland where they belong.  The second team was put in Vancouver, not really an expansion candidate in real life but I felt the west getting both teams made geographic sense with where I was placing them, and it also meant Seattle wasn't completely isolated.

Oh cool that's awesome - I love doing that kind of stuff with historical simulation games. I am messing around with a historical basketball one right now. What did you name the Vancouver team?

[Malenko]

1 hour ago, Krabby said:

Oh cool that's awesome - I love doing that kind of stuff with historical simulation games. I am messing around with a historical basketball one right now. What did you name the Vancouver team?

Is it FBB?

[The Buscher]

2 hours ago, Krabby said:

Oh cool that's awesome - I love doing that kind of stuff with historical simulation games. I am messing around with a historical basketball one right now. What did you name the Vancouver team?

Well ironically you mentioned basketball and I just went with the Vancouver Grizzlies.  Same color scheme as the old basketball uniforms too.

Much like how I don’t have to care what the owners think in-game, it’s also nice to not have to care about copyright law.

[Krabby]

37 minutes ago, Busch Wyatt said:

Well ironically you mentioned basketball and I just went with the Vancouver Grizzlies.  Same color scheme as the old basketball uniforms too.

Much like how I don’t have to care what the owners think in-game, it’s also nice to not have to care about copyright law.

Oh nice! Haha that's pretty sweet - Grizzlies vs Mariners rivalry would be something!

1 hour ago, Malenko said:

Is it FBB?

Basketball GM by ZenGM

[RoHitman Reigns]

Time to bring on Arizona. Hope theyre ready for playoff Phillies.

[gunnar hendershow]

The 5 winningest teams this year are all out before the LCS.

[The Buscher]

The point the owners kept trying to make when attempting to sell the players on expanded playoffs was that more playoff spots means more teams have incentive to go for it.  Although the union did eventually cave to expansion, albeit not to the level the league originally wanted, they largely opposed it because they actually felt it would give teams less incentive to be aggressive, not more.

The Phillies at least went out and spent big the past couple of years.  But there's tons of cheap owners out there salivating at an 84-win D-Backs team making it from the 6-seed.  This format just sucks.

[GhostMachine]

I want a Texas-Arizona World Series, because I'm sick of the Astros and pretty much hate all Philadelphia teams due to their fanbase. If Texas goes, I'll probably watch it regardless of the NL team just to see if the Rangers can finally win the championship. 

[Lint]

Rob Manfred defends new playoff structure as top seeds eliminated yet again, including three 100-win teams

[gunnar hendershow]

He'll defend it until he has the opportunity to sell even more postseason games to TV networks.

[The Buscher]

The whole thing about baseball is that you’re supposed to live and die with your team for 6 months, 7 months if you’re lucky enough to go to the World Series.  But that investment of time would in theory make winning a World Series feel like the sweetest payoff.

With this playoff structure as is there’s very little reason to pay attention before the last month, month and a half.  It’s basically the NHL regular season but with double the games.  Just gotta sneak in and be hot at the right time.  Can’t really say that about the NBA because low seeds toppling high seeds is extremely rare.

[gunnar hendershow]

1 hour ago, Busch Wyatt said:

The whole thing about baseball is that you’re supposed to live and die with your team for 6 months, 7 months if you’re lucky enough to go to the World Series.  But that investment of time would in theory make winning a World Series feel like the sweetest payoff.

With this playoff structure as is there’s very little reason to pay attention before the last month, month and a half.  It’s basically the NHL regular season but with double the games.  Just gotta sneak in and be hot at the right time.  Can’t really say that about the NBA because low seeds toppling high seeds is extremely rare.

With rare exceptions (usually teams that have dealt with injuries or multiple unlucky bounces), NFL regular season reflects who will win in the playoffs. For every year with a massive upset or two there's 4 where it's all-chalk or the lower seed that does go on a run is one we all figured could. The biggest surprise runs in my life watching football are probably the second Giants Super Bowl run w/ Eli, the first Ravens Super Bowl when their offense was terrible, and even though they lost the Kurt Warner Cardinals. Everybody else, for multiple weeks during the regular season, has seemed an at the least plausible Super Bowl winner.

[GhostMachine]

11 hours ago, Lint said:

Rob Manfred defends new playoff structure as top seeds eliminated yet again, including three 100-win teams

This playoff structure is about as stupid as Bud Selig's old "Parity works" statement. 

[The Buscher]

The Marlins informed Kim Ng that they intended to hire a President of Baseball Operations above her, effectively meaning she was getting demoted after leading the Marlins to their first full season playoff berth in 20 years.  She rightfully told them to fuck off and they've now parted ways.

Presumably she'll be searching for a job as a #1 in somebody's front office, Boston jumps out to me as a realistic landing spot.  If she does come in as a #2 it'll at least be because she's got a good rapport with the #1 and will have a signficant role + at least the expectations will be there going in.  To just blindside her with a de facto demotion like this is a real slap in the face.

[Krabby]

24 minutes ago, Busch Wyatt said:

The Marlins informed Kim Ng that they intended to hire a President of Baseball Operations above her, effectively meaning she was getting demoted after leading the Marlins to their first full season playoff berth in 20 years.  She rightfully told them to fuck off and they've now parted ways.

Presumably she'll be searching for a job as a #1 in somebody's front office, Boston jumps out to me as a realistic landing spot.  If she does come in as a #2 it'll at least be because she's got a good rapport with the #1 and will have a signficant role + at least the expectations will be there going in.  To just blindside her with a de facto demotion like this is a real slap in the face.

And then they had the gall to mention on their facebook that they had exercised their part of the "Mutual Option" but that Kim declined hers:

Spoiler

 

[gunnar hendershow]

They deserve all the criticism coming their way. She'll be fine I think - either as a very sought-after #2 or a #1 somewhere.